Once I was told that 3 or 4 vblanks were enough to draw a whole screen, so a fairly good ammount of data could be drawn during each vblank.
But recently, I read you had time to draw, like, 2, 3 columns at most! That is insane!! Is it really this few tiles?
I'm designing a platform engine right now, and if we can really only draw this little to the screen, I'll have to rethink a lot of stuff. I was going to update the screen based on 16x16 pixel blocks, in a 4-way scroller, wich meant I could possibly have one frame draw 2 rows and 2 columns of tiles, clearly beyond what seems to be possible.
I guess I'll just have to draw it 1 column and 1 row at a time. Or even have my code smart enough to start drawing what's to come even before the player actually gets to that part, based on the direction he is currently going to. This way I'll update every frame, little by little, and won't need to worry about big writes.
I could also drop my framerate to 30, instead of 60. This way I would give my game 2 vblanks to update it's graphics... but the player might notice this game is less smooth than others...
What do you suggest?
But recently, I read you had time to draw, like, 2, 3 columns at most! That is insane!! Is it really this few tiles?
I'm designing a platform engine right now, and if we can really only draw this little to the screen, I'll have to rethink a lot of stuff. I was going to update the screen based on 16x16 pixel blocks, in a 4-way scroller, wich meant I could possibly have one frame draw 2 rows and 2 columns of tiles, clearly beyond what seems to be possible.
I guess I'll just have to draw it 1 column and 1 row at a time. Or even have my code smart enough to start drawing what's to come even before the player actually gets to that part, based on the direction he is currently going to. This way I'll update every frame, little by little, and won't need to worry about big writes.
I could also drop my framerate to 30, instead of 60. This way I would give my game 2 vblanks to update it's graphics... but the player might notice this game is less smooth than others...
What do you suggest?